Form as “credible work”

It just so happens that focus on form in this course was applicable to me in another—Marxist Milton. In this course we looked at John Milton through the lens of Karl Marx and his idea of productive work. I ended up give a presentation on GREAT day on a paper I wrote about how Milton used form in his poem Lycidas to establish his work as credible and productive. One of the main things I focused on was that Milton was writing amongst many poets who relied on shape poetry to carry across their ideas, while Milton still used form with meter and a set number of lines, etc. his form was much more subtle and very much a reflection of the content in a way that was not so blatant. There even is a cyclical feeling to the form of his piece that conjures the feeling of the battle of life and death.

Overal really neat to be able to tie the focus of this class to another!